MARTIN CHIGWEDE
21 years | Lilongwe, Malawi

Nobody in my family is in the medical field and it is only me sharing medical stories. I initially wanted to become a medical doctor. When I was ten years old I went to the hospital and met a doctor and started to ask questions; and when I reached 18 years I realized I could actually do it. This is when I applied for medical school but was unfortunately not accepted. I then decided to enrol for the combined nursing-midwifery programme in Lilongwe.
I am very interested in maternal and newborn health and sexual and reproductive health in general. Midwifery gives me the position to actively contribute to it and not only being interested in it. Further I have the opportunity to create a human and humane birthing experience.
Our programme is divided into two years of nursing, followed by two years of midwifery. We are 33 students at my college out of which six are males. Although we are fewer in number if is perceived as normal that also male midwives deliver babies in Malawi. The program is quite serious and comes with a lot of formalities and respect. You can almost call it “bureaucratic” – you cannot study it without proper rules, routines and policies and something I really like about my studies.
We have a specified time period of theoretical learning, which is followed by a lot of practical education. I am not really a fan of long classes because I feel it is tiring to the point where I do not really get something out of it …”but practical sessions are really rich with information and you get to understand how things work and… I loooove that! The practical and the theory side are well balanced”. A challenge we are however facing is that we need to reach a certain number of case studies including complicated deliveries. Being present during a high risk or complicated delivery, such as a twin or breech delivery, is nothing we can influence. But we need to reach a certain number and that is really hard.
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"Nursing is quite cool...but midwifery is way cooler!"

Thinking back I did not really get to enjoy the first two years of my school. “Nursing is quite cool …but midwifery is way cooler! … As much I have been devoted to our program I am extra-devoted to midwifery. I will go deep into midwifery and soon get to start my postgraduate studies in midwifery…
The main reason on why I chose the programme was the joy of being the first person of seeing the baby and introducing the baby to the mother and saying: “Hi, this is your baby, a boy, and he was born at 3.30 today…that feeling is an amazing feeling … and is actually a very big dream coming true.” As a midwife “…I am part of a life changing experience… initiating a whole new live is a real privilege I must say.”
I should have graduated in a few days from now. But due to Corona all educational facilities were closed at the end of March and we had to go home, regardless that we were close to finishing our studies. After a few weeks the school introduced online learning. It was a good development but we are facing technical challenges in Malawi: the internet is not very good and also very expensive. Hence the learning was not constant and not very efficient and effective. Overall we had no school for 6-7 months and only continued face-to-face classes mid-September .
“Every time I get to deliver a baby … I usually tell my mom.” Last time was last week during my midnight duty. I had delivered a baby and the mother asked me to name the baby. I was really shocked but went ahead and named the baby Alinache. It means “Join me for God is with us”. I immediately had to tell my mom and she got really excited. I did not only have the privilege to deliver the baby, but to hand it over to the mother, and to give it a name it will carry forever. This was truly amazing!”
While being stuck at home I started a small health promotion project in front of my house and together with my cousins: I set up a bucket of water and soap, wrote some signs on the back of old calendar sheets and invited people to wash their hands. The time of Corona made me realized that midwifery is not only about giving birth but it is way more than that; it is about creating a really good environment for women and their babies.

Interview by Leah F. Bohle, 21 November 2020

Photo by Martin Chigwede